When originally conceived council housing was for anybody who wanted a good quality home and a fair landlord. The prevailing view for much of the last century until the 80s was private landlords were a bad thing and state provided renting was the answer. It wasn’t (only) about means. With right to buy and the general ideological shift to home ownership council housing or whats left is now often the safety net or tenure of last resort. Because of this and a general shortage of council homes it’s a bit of a straw man as there won’t be many people with 60k who want to live in council house anymore or would ever get to the top of the waiting
List. Exception might be in affluent rural areas where even an income of 60k might not get you on the property ladder and you might need to rent. The continued existence of good qualiry council housing also also provides a degree of rent control on the bottom end of the private market which ultimately benefits us all by cooling rent inflation.

isnt this just a pointless headline grabber (quelle surprise!) and only affects <20000 or so houses?
but it will hopefully free up some expensive properties and get them on the market, gotta keep stoking that housing boom!

restricting benefit for under 25s would have a much more detrimental effect on the lives of many
and yet pensions are safe…..

Simple – at a stroke it will solve the defecit conundrum. There must be literally billions of people in that situation, surely? I mean there’s hundreds and billions of poor people and they’re always reproducing so it stands to reason. And people under 25 don’t need houses because they can just live in the families country cottage or the pimlico pied a terre should they become bothersome.

On paper it is a very easy straight forward idea that probably makes sense. However there are some rather odd aspects to how you would implement such an idea, that make it really seem more like attention grabbing headlines.

(1) Would you base it on an individual’s income or the family income?
– would it right that a couple each earning 30k might qualify for a council house but a household with one earner on 60k and a stay at home mum/dad does not? [the single earner is paying more tax anyway]
– what if two people with moderate earnings of 25k each then have a ‘grown’ up child living at home bringing in 15+k
– would you consider outgoings too? e.g. the family who’s second pregnancy turns out to be triplets; or a child with a major disability, or perhaps an elderly ‘parent’ living with them may have very different costs to someone who lives alone.
– what about the ‘self employed’ or others who have variable incomes. A very good year? or averaged over a longer period?
– Could you get the bizzare situation where someone actually wants to avoid a payrise so they don’t trigger having to move.

(2) Who is going to administer the required checks, and how will that be funded? Could that cost be better spent?

(3) Does this push high earners out of council estates ‘ghettoizing’ communities, for the “poorer”?

(4) Are we really going to push out someone who has lived in the same house all their life?
– what if (and at that level of earnings this is likely to be the case) they are close to retirement, and after retiring would ‘requalify’ for council housing?
– what if their children are now adults and want to swap round who the main name on the tenancy is to keep mum/dad in the house?

(5) What proportion of rented council housing stock is ‘blocked’ by high earners. I’d guess it is a very small amount.

Kimbers, I wouldn’t say it was pointless if 20,000 families could be housed into affordable housing and have a little left over in their income for some of the nicer things in life like heating and better quality food.
If some 20,000 families earning £60k+ who could afford to pay more rent had to make their council property available and spend a little less on items poorer families deem to be luxuries then I can’t see any harm.

Mmmm, but don’t they have tenancy agreements/contracts with local authorities and not central government, they are not in receipt of a centrally or locally adminsitered benefit (presumably) so how are you going to legally ‘evict’ all these people? You surely can only use it as a bar for people entering the council housing? Am i (or is George) confusing social housing with council housing? Sounds like another marginal too much hassle to be bothered with or yeild much. Plus the rents go to local authorities anyway who are not likely to return that money to the exchequer as they’ll still have yo fnd the same housing, or is the money the saving from keeping other families in temporary accommodation? The more I think about this the less i know.

With the execption of council tax, students pay the same taxes as everyone else.

And of course Income tax !! – unless this has changed

Two views
1. Why should someone who was succesful have to leave the area they grew up in?Why should they not stay and be a role model for the community and show that even people from the most humblest of backgrounds can succeed in this meritocracy – surely this is the epitome of the capitalist dream/myth

2. Other more deserving, by which we mean poorer, need the housing – though of course the actual cause here is the selling of the stock and we all know who to blame for that

Ideally build some more and let whomever live there. they have obviously been there years and all it will do is force them to buy the house anyway. Is it really just designed to annoy Bob Crowe?

We have other more pressing issues and the desire to deprive the young of benefits whilst ring fencing with a triple lock the pensions { not all are that vulnerabel these days and they are the richest pensioners we will ever have IMHO shows two things
1. Tory voters are old
2. if you think voting achieves nothing then this should convince you otherwise.

Remember when we kept saying “we’re all in this together”, eh George…..?

Anyway… time to clobber the very poorest in society again. And punish the unemployed for being unemployed. Or the young for being young. Or the disabled for being disabled. And the poor for being…. well… you get the idea

First we remove housing benefit, then every other benefit for the under 25’s. Then we work upwards from there on the age range……

I think the correct answer is that social housing should be allocated by need, full stop.

Its as easy for someone earning 60k to need a different house as someone earning nothing – family separation, disability/illness, taking on responsibility for nephews etc. if someone dies, house lost due to coastal erosion – the list is endless

There are very good argument why overcrowding and poor housing affects health and social mobility, I also think there are a whole variety of very strong arguments why having people of different social backgrounds in one area/associated housing is good for all of them. A lot of this can be balanced in the planning process.

I reckon that there is an extensive argument over market rent that could be had, based on income, and there is certainly a discussion on under-occupation – but I don’t think that any of these facts should affect the allocation.

Edit: for what its worth, I think that many of the not for profit social housing providers could use their nouse and revisit their allocation & building policies, as building some of your properties for open market rent or sale and others for social allocation would allow them to subsidise the capital expense of new social housing – build ten houses and sell half of them, and the whole thing pays for itself.

People are right to say this is a failure of successive Government’s. Thatcher shattered the post war consensus and changed our attitudes towards housing forever. Labour took the electorally easy approach and never faced the issue head on kicking the can down the road. We should be using using the printed money and Government guarantees to build more houses. Social housing, new housing for first time buyers and co-op/mutual ownership for those who want a different option.

The whole council house thing is a Red Herring. Its meaningless in the grand scheme of things. As it will involve a minuscule amount of people. And is probably legally unworkable anyway. It was just raised as a smoke screen for the real policy here….

It seems to have worked then. Whats everyone on this thread discussing?

Its the removal of housing benefit for the under 25 that’s the meat here. I think this is the thin end of the wedge. Next it’ll the gradual removal of all other benefits, i.e.: jobseekers allowance to be put at a reduced level for under 25’s, then gradually eroded until it no longer exists. What then? The minimum wage will no longer apply to the under 25’s? Free NHS provision? They’re already paying a fortune for education.

Whats happening here is that the tories have just deemed that this is the end of the post war settlement that is the welfare state. Its over! From now on, It will no longer apply to those under 25. Funnily: that never actually appeared in any manifesto.

They’ve just decided to do it. dismantling it brick by brick!

What effect will the removal of housing benefit have on homelessness in the under 25’s? Well… I’d suggest we better get used to the idea of seeing a lot of them sleeping rough on the streets. But hey… Someones got to fund the tax cuts for high earners they want to deliver before the next election

can’t see the problem in scrapping council houses for people earning in excess of £60k

It depends on what purpose you imagine council house are for. Its widely depicted as a part of our social safety net but much of our council housing was built as homes for working families and and not, as is now easy to think, as ghetto for the poor. Nearly 1 in 5 of the population live in either council houses or similarly managed homes and not because they’re all in dire need. The media spotlight tends to fall on housing schemes of high unemployment and deprivation but they’re not the norm and social housing on the whole houses a much more mixed community.

ts the removal of housing benefit for the under 25 that’s the meat here.

But its hardly a new announcement, and its not a flat ‘everyone under 25’ either, the proposal had a long list of exceptions – in fact the cynic would comment that the list of exceptions pretty much nullify the whole thing.

edit – regards pensions, I doubt we’ll see a cut, but I think that the winter payments and TV licences will be lost for better off pensioners

Just because you’re in a council house doesn’t mean you’re a ‘drain’ on council funds, if your rent covers the costs of the home and associated admin, repairs etc.

I can see some merit in means-tested rents for council housing, but then I suppose that’s basically what housing benefit does, except the extra money goes to private landlords rather than the council just charging less rent.

And as for students not paying income tax, AFAIK there’s no “I’m a student” exemption for PAYE. If you earn above the threshold then you pay income tax.

binners – Member
The whole council house thing is a Red Herring. Its meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Exactly, but it makes great headlines especially if you incorporate pictures of arch villains like big bad Bob Crowe!!

But there has been and will be more of this headline-grabbing herrings for the simple reason that the Coalition has ring fenced the big areas of gov spending for obvious political purposes (they need votes). That leaves small (and largely) irrelevant issues that hopefully grab attention from target voters. It was ever thus.

But then…

Whats happening here is that the tories have just deemed that this is the end of the post war settlement that is the welfare state….. They’ve just decided to do it. dismantling it brick by brick!

…doesn’t follow. In the past few days, GO has given strong hints that he wants to role back the role of the state and that austerity is a long way from over. However, he also knows that the key areas for reform remain political dynamite that will most likely blow up in his face come 2015. So rather than fundamental change we remain handcuffed by tinkering at the margin while fundmental structural issues remain unaddressed. You have to love politicians!!!!

Odd that they were nor wearing the purple ties in that photo, a rare slip.

Exactly. The economics of pretty much none of their policies stack up. There aren’t many savings to be had once you’ve finished making the entire public sector redundant. The big change is not on what amount of our money is being spent. The difference is into who’s pockets all the money is going. G4S. Serco. Capita. etc

Pensions are not a benefit they are an entitlement paid for through compulsory National Saving, there should be no cut!

No, pensions are a pyramid selling scam.

and the word Compulsary, employee/employer contributions are simply income tax given a name that isn’t tax.

Remember we are all in it together.

Or, if we assume the mess we are in is the result of political decisions, what was the age group of the voters and politicians who got us here? Was it the under 25’s who voted for thatcher and the selling off of council homes? Was it the under 25’s who voted for Blair and his wars? Was it the under 25’s who ran Lehmans into the ground?

Maybe the generation who made the mess should start cleaning it up????

The dismantling of the welfare state was begun by the people that created it (The Labour Party) in 1950. National Insurance, which was supposed to service an individuals welfare needs (e.g health) was ‘raided’ to pay for an increase in armaments production for the Korean War.

Aneurin Bevan resigned from the Labour government in protest over this.

Successive governments have tinkered with the welfare state ever since until today it bears no relation to the original concept that people voted for (and probably still would) in 1945.

Link this to the massively changed country that we live in now (service rather than manufacturing based economy etc.) and it’s hardly surprising that the arguments for and against a particular suggestion (in this case the ‘right’ to a council house) are so polarised and often misleading.

It’s hardly news that the Tories believe that the answer lies in a smaller state, but an incoming Labour government would not be taking us back to the utopia of the immediate post war welfare state either.

Just because you’re in a council house doesn’t mean you’re a ‘drain’ on council funds, if your rent covers the costs of the home and associated admin, repairs etc.

Well it costs quite a bit to buy/build a property so that’s why there’s a shortage – end up paying for people to stay in short-term private accommodation. So free up the council houses for those that really need it. If you’re on £60k you can commute from a cheaper are if that’s the issue. I used to work near some fantastically located council accommodation near Southwark Bridge, hopefully they’re all lived in by key worker types, if so they have some lovely cars.

We must overhaul the welfare system if we are to protect it. Council housing should be means tested annually. The only issue I have with fixed figures like £60k is it doesn’t take into account regional variations in house prices and rents.

I posted a thread a while back about “Joan’s £500k” this was a retired nurse (so very worthy) who had never married but lived in a three bedroomed council house – is that a suitable use of such a relatively large property. When she died she had £500k in the bank, should she be in a subsidised council property ?

The saving fro this policy comes from releasing council houses from those that don’t need them and thus saving housing benefit paying rent to private landlords from those who cannot get a council house but need one.

So me working since 17 paying tax would not be able to claim if I lost my job for example, but someone who has been a student (not paying tax) who has studied until 25 then can’t find a job can.

I think the point is that the average working under 25 (especialy down south) is probably living in a shared house, or even with their parents still, whether at uni or or working. So there’s a “benifit trap” (I hate that term), composed of lower minimum wages, and student loans, which would put someone on benifits in a better position than most other young people.

Figures plucked from my memory when I was at uni 2004-2008, so may not be accurate:

Give the unemployed young housing benifit and you’d make them probably twice as well off as those studying full time and on a par with those working, both significantly better off than those in Uni who had to pay it all back when they got a job!

Side note, you’re a net drain on the tax system untill earnings hit arround £50k IIRC, as tax goes up with earnigns (20, 40, 50% rates), so you actualy have to earn a lot more than the average before the “I pay tax therefore should get more out” argument holds any water.